Recent Changes to Brother's Keeper 5.2

Note: this page is about BK 5.2 and it NOT about BK 6.0
If you already have BK for Windows, pick Help, About BK to see the
date of your program.
Even if you already have a previous version, you should get the entire
BKSETUP.EXE program if you want the current version.
Either download the large BKSETUP.EXE file and run it from your
hard drive, or else get the program in two parts if you need to
move it to a different computer. The first part is BKSETUP.EXE. The
second part is called BKSETUP.W02. Put both files in one place and
then run BKSETUP to install. Or put each file on a separate diskette.
The reason the file is in two parts is so that you can put each part
onto a 1.44 meg diskette for installation. You need BOTH parts (or
the large one piece file) even if you have a previous version.
After you download BKSETUP.EXE (and BKSETUP.W02 if 2 parts) then use
Windows Program Manager and pick File, Run, then BKSETUP.EXE
Or if you have Win 95/98 then pick Start, Run, BKSETUP.EXE
If you have downloaded BKSETUP into a certain directory on your hard
drive, then after you pick Run you would type that directory name
before BKSETUP for example C:\AOL30\DOWNLOAD\BKSETUP.EXE
If BKSETUP is on a diskette, then type A:BKSETUP.EXE after you pick Run.
If you have a Canon BJC printer or the new HP LaserJet 1100 and you get
GPF errors when running BK, then in BK pick File, Options, Other, and set
the option for BJC printers and then save options.
13-Dec-00 Changed price to $45
07-Sep-00 Fixed a problem if you first make an RTF file with one of
the book reports, then go to Descendant Report and make
a TXT file that includes names of parents of spouse.
Working on fixing an error "illegal function call" when
using Windows 2000 and you click on a person on the Ancestor
chart on the screen. This 07-Sep-00 version does not fix
that problem, but it gives a new "location number" for the
error which should help in fixing it. If you get the
error when using Windows 2000 please tell John the location
number (it should be a number between 1 and 70)
12-Jun-00 Fixed a problem if you delete a man or woman on the Edit
Family screen and that man or woman was married (linked
to a spouse.) The problem first started with the 22 March
version of BK. So if you have a BK version from 22 March
until 2 June then you should download the 12 June version
to fix the problem. (Pick Help, About BK5 to see the date
of your program.) If you had the problem, then when you
deleted a married person, it would sometimes jump to the
Edit Person screen and show the spouse with a sex of ?
Fixed a problem in the "delete unused sources" routine
that only occurred if you have over 32,000 sources.
02-Jun-00 Fixed a problem which only affects databases with over
400,000 people. (Such as the CD from the California
Mennonite Historical Society.)
26-Apr-00 Fixed a problem with the BKEVENTS in the Timeline if
you have added several more events to the file. Sometimes
two events would overlap.
Fixed a problem on the Descendant Report. If you were
printing locations also, then it would not print a location
if there were no date in the date field.
Changed back the Ancestor chart so if you click the X
to close Ancestor chart it will return to Edit if Edit
was open also.
03-Apr-00 Fixed two small problems with the 22-Mar-00 version.
The first time you viewed a picture for a person from
the Edit Family screen, it would return to the Edit
Person screen instead. The first time you went to the
Edit Person screen and viewed a source, it would jump
to the Marriage screen when you closed the Edit Person
screen. These problems are fixed in the 03-Apr-00 version.
22-Mar-00 Some people were having trouble when jumping from BK
to another program and then back to BK. I have made
some changes so that if you were on the Edit Person
screen when you jumped out, it will now return to the
Edit Person screen when you jump back and not come
back to the Family Edit screen.
Made a change when printing Group sheets for all the
Ancestors of a person. It was sometimes skipping a
single parent ancestor.
Made change to Restore backup. When it shows the files
to be restored, you can press F8 if you only want to
restore the text and picture files but not the data files.
01-Mar-00 Added option for larger pictures for children on Group
sheet. Previously children pictures were 1.2 inches tall.
Option for 1.6 inches tall (same as husband and wife.)
Fixed a problem when restoring from multi-disk backup.
It will now ask if you also want to restore the text
or picture files.
Fixed problem on Register Book report when the register
number was over 32,000.
Fixed problem with "delete unused locations" if there
were over 32,000 locations.
19-Jan-00 Fixed a problem in the Restore function that affected
restoring from multiple compressed diskettes.
Added a shortcut key F7 to use on the Edit Family screen
if you do not want to click the Add Child button.
02-Nov-99 A few people using the German version had errors with the
12-Oct-99 version if they did not have the MS LineDraw font
on their system and were making a Tree or Descendant report.
Also fixed an "overflow" error if you were creating an RTF
file on the Custom list screen and you were including field
number 31.
12-Oct-99 Fixed a problem when printing the parents of the spouse
on the Descendant Report. It was wrongly showing parents
of a 'not entered' spouse in the 05-Oct version.
05-Oct-99 Added an option to exclude the details about living people
on the Descendant Report. Also added the option to show
the parents of the spouse on that report.
Made a change to the Gedcom import routine to better handle
gedcom files that use the same id number for a person and
a marriage.
28-Sep-99 Fixed a problem in Gedcom export where in recent versions
it was always using the Windows character set even if you
requested the ansel character set.
14-Sep-99 Added an option to exclude the details about living people
from the following reports: Register Book, Indented Book,
Ahnentafel Book
Note to language translators, workfile line 403 is where
it looks for the "(details excluded)" words to print after
a person's name, and workfile line 781 is where it looks for
the line "exclude data for living people under the age of:"
Modified the program so it is ok for a name to start with
a number. For example, if you type a name like
"3rd Wife" it will allow it. It used to go to person
number 3 in a case like that where the name started with a
number.
03-Aug-99 Fixed a problem when printing page numbers at the bottom
of the book reports which only happened if certain options
were set for the printer.
Fixed a problem with the right margin of the Preview
of the Group sheets.
Fixed an error that occurred when printing a relationship
box chart over 18 generations. Now it gives a message
instead of the error.
Added new sort routine for Icelandic version.
16-May-99 Fixed a problem where the CTRL keys file was being
created in a temporary directory instead of in
the directory where it was in previous versions.
10-May-99 Fixed a problem in the 06-May-99 version where the
alphabetical sorts and birthday sorts were not correctly
updating the sorted files.
06-May-99 Added option on gedcom export to pick the age when
excluding details for living people. For example, you
can make a gedcom file to exclude living people under 90.
Then if the age computes to 95 because there is no
death date entered for a person, that person would
be in the gedcom file. But details for people under
the age of 90 would not be in the gedcom file.
Fixed a problem in the gedcom import routine when
reading Ansel characters. (The problem happened
if a name was over 40 characters long.)
In the Split database routine you can press F8
to select individuals only. You can now press
F8 again to select families again. (Prior to this
if you pressed F8 it would not change back to
families again.) If you select individuals only
it will not select marriages or spouses or children
when you pick Range of numbers.
07-Apr-99 Fixed a problem with the Word Search when searching
for two things in a message line using AND. A change
in January 1999 caused a problem where sometimes it
would indicate a match for both items when only the
first was actually in a message line. This version
fixes that.
Made a change in the routine to print a paragraph for
each person on the List routines (custom reports.)
If the Register report options are set to "show link
back to starting person" then when you do the paragraph
reports with List, it will show the parents of the
main person for each paragraph (if they are known.)
The gedcom import routine will normally add a space
after a comma in a location field if there is not
a space there. This routine has been changed so it
will not add the space if doing so would cause the
location to be over 40 characters long.
25-Mar-99 Made some changes to the UTILITY program. It can now
do a global search and replace for the Sources and
the Page numbers. It can add a word like "Page" before
what is in the page number field if the field to look
for is blank and the field to change to contains something.
Also the UTILITY program can fix the name field if names
were entered last name first.
18-Mar-99 Fixed a problem on the Edit screen where some people were
getting a message "invalid property value" when they
clicked on the Parents button for certain people. This
problem seemed to only be in the 16-Feb-99 version.
Modified the Reasonableness check to recognize more
unusual dates so there will be less listing of strange
ages with dates that are not normal.
16-Feb-99 Modified the descendant reports to print more children
in rare cases where there were multiple marriages and over
35 children total.
Modified the Word Search routine so if you are searching
for two words in the message 7 line area, it will still
match even if the two words are in different lines.
Modified the Reasonableness check to recognize dates
with ? after the year and recognize dual dates. So
if you have a birth date of 1704? it will use "1704"
as the birth year and not "704?". It will also
look at "1704/05" and use "1704" instead of "4/05".
On the Edit Family screen, if you are showing one child
at a time, you can type a number on the keyboard to go
to that child number. Type the number 3 and it will
show child 3. This is similar to the DOS version of BK5.
Type 1 to 9 to see child 1 to 9. Type 0 for 10 and
type shift+1 for child 11. Shift plus 1 is the ! symbol
on the keyboard. Foreign keyboards may not work for
children 11 to 20, but if your keyboard has these
symbols above the numbers it will work. !@#$%^&*()
You can still use the mouse and click the scroll bar
to the right of the children as before.
If the Quality check shows several errors, and if you
want to write those error messages to a file, then
when you go to Quality check, press F5 before you
press the Start button.
When doing a Backup, you can press F8 to pick other
drives. Backup normally allows you to backup to
A: B: or the last drive if it is removable. Press F8
to backup to any valid drive or directory. Warning:
be careful to not backup over some directory on your
hard drive that contains a different data base.
Restore has a new feature to also restore the text
or picture files. This will only work if you made
the backup with version 5.2G. The current backup
routine creates a file on each backup diskette that
lists the text or picture files on that diskette
and the directory they came from. The Restore routine
will read that file and copy them back to their
original directory.
12-Jan-99 Modified in the Utility program the routine that adds a
source where there is only a page number. It will now
do the same for marriages that have a page number without
a source. See below at 8-Jan-1999 for more information.
11-Jan-99 Made some more changes to the Edit screen to try
to make the children birth dates line up when you
pick Show All children. Some people were still
reporting an alignment problem when some names
were long.
New language files and help files for Danish and German
08-Jan-99 Made some more changes to the Edit screen to try
to make the children birth dates line up when you
pick Show All children. Some people were still
reporting an alignment problem when some names
were long.
Changed the List of Surnames report to allow up
to 32,000 different surnames (it used to be 8000)
Added to the Utility program a new routine to
move page numbers to a source. People that were
using the old 4.5 version of BK may have used
the "check field" in version 4.5 to hold a source
for an event. If so, that field gets moved to
the Page field in 5.2. The Utility program now
has a routine to either add a source so that the
page field has somewhere to attach, or else they
can move the page field to line one of the source
for that event. This basically only affects people
that converted from BK 4.5. As always, you should
have two good backup copies of your data before
using the Utility program. It is a separate download
file called bkUsetup.EXE on the BK web site.
07-Jan-99 The UTILITY program has a new feature. It can
add something to the REF fields for a range of
people. There are 6 different options. It can
move the BK code number to the REF field. It
can move any characters to the REF field.
It can do both at the same time. Like if several
people are submitting their data to a group
database, they could put their initials and the
BK code number into the REF field. Then when someone
is looking at the group database, it will show in
the REF field something like JRS-123 which means
JRS is the person that submitted the database and
123 is the BK code number of that person in the
database of the submitter. There are also options
to leave what is in the REF field and add some
characters to the left or right, and an option
to blank out the REF field.
16-Dec-98 Fixed a problem on the statistics Graph charts which
only happened if the computer was in 1024 by 768 display
mode and if the user had selected large fonts.
Fixed a problem in the book reports where if you asked
for the spouse to be bold, and if you asked for the
spouse name to print on a new line before the spouse
messages, sometimes it would not be bold.
10-Dec-98 Fixed a problem that only happened if you picked the
Ahnentafel Custom List, and picked a new Paragraph
option, and then picked the option to send it to a file.
It used to hang, but now it works correctly.
09-Dec-98 Added option for margins to Collapsed ancestor chart.
On the Book reports, if you are printing the spouse name
in bold print, and if you are printing the spouse name
before the spouse message lines, then the name will be bold
there also.
Version is called 5.2G starting on this date.
01-Dec-98 Fixed two problems with the new paragraph field on the
custom reports (see 20-Nov-98 below.) If you picked
alphabetical report and then made a file, it will now
put the }} at the end of the RTF file so that your
word processor can open the file. Also, it no longer
puts the register numbers before the children when doing
a paragraph report from custom reports. Also note that
if you pick File, Create TXT file from custom reports
it will make a TXT file if you are not doing paragraphs,
but it will make an RTF file if you are doing paragraphs.
20-Nov-98 Added new feature to print a paragraph of information
on the Custom reports. See fields 86-88. The paragraph
will contain the same information that was selected
on the Register Book report (and saved with save options.)
To print a paragraph for each person, pick field 86 or
87 or 88 as the first and only field to print.
Added new feature to pause printing after a certain number
of pages. Set this in File, Options, Field names. It
applies to almost all the printed reports. A few users
had printer errors after 85 pages or more, so if they set
it to pause after 50 pages, it should solve that problem.
Added new feature on Split database to select a branch
of a family. Pick a person and it will find all the
ancestors of that person, and all the descendants of
all the ancestors.
Made some changes to help the alignment of children
on the Edit screen when showing all children (it was
messed up for some people after I added the new feature
to have + before married children.)
Fixed problem when making RTF file of ancestor chart
when using standard ancestor numbers but not starting
with number 1.
29-Oct-98 On the Family Edit screen, it will show a + before
the child name if the child is married or has a partner.
Fixed a problem in the 21-Oct feature for = to repeat
a source. If the user typed = then F10 it would give
an error. Now it does not give the error. However
it is still best to type = then press Enter before
pressing F10 or Save. (see 21-Oct-98 for details)
On the Ancestor chart RTF option, added "5 generation"
to the menu item so people will know it does not make
an RTF file for 4 or 6 or multi-page ancestor chart.
21-Oct-98 Added new menu item under List for displaying an
alphabetical list by first name. (note to translators
in the workfile, change line 225 to say "alphabetical
display (last name)" and add line 252 which says
"alphabetical display (first name)".
Added new feature when adding sources. When you click
on the Save button for a source, the program will remember
that source. The next time you add a source for someone
you can type = as the first character in the first line
and it will duplicate the previous source. If you type
== as the first two characters in the first line, it
will duplicate the previous source and the page number
and the quality field. There should be no other characters
on any line if you are using the = or == feature. Just
type = or == and then press Enter and it will duplicate
the previously saved source.
When you type or modify a source for someone, if you
forget to click Cancel or Save it will give you a message
and tell you to click on Cancel or Save. Previously
it was possible to type a new source and then click on
a date or location field without clicking Save first.
(Note to translators, the warning is currently only in
English.)
06-Oct-98 Added option in the Ancestor chart to have it show
the baptism date if the birth date is not known,
and the buried date if the death date is not known.
Note to translators: You do not need a new translation
program, just go to workfile line number 404 and
enter your translation for "show buried date if death
date unknown". Then this version will use that line
on the ancestor chart options. Line 2608 already has
the abreviation "bur." that is used. The line for
"show baptism date if ..." is the same line that is
used on the Box chart screen so it is already translated.
30-Sep-98 Added option for RTF output for Ancestor chart.
The RTF file contains a 5 generation ancestor chart.
The font size is set to 10 point. (The 29-Sep-98 version
had a problem if you were printing no code numbers.)
Fixed problem on Word search of "any field" for the
marriage file. It sometimes gave stat error 4 for
deleted marriages.
17-Sep-98 Fixed problem on Indented list where it allowed you
to select over 17 generations. That report currently
prints only 17 generations. Use a different Descendant
report if you need more generations.
31-Aug-98 Fixed a problem where only English showed on the menu
when you picked List, Locations.
24-Aug-98 Added the menu item "Index only" under File on Descendant
Report and the Group sheets. If you print a report
and want to reprint just the index, pick that menu item.
Added the option to print certain reports to a text file.
Set up the report like normal and then pick File, Create
TXT file. This option was added to these reports:
Count of Descendants
Missing Information Report
List of Surnames
Alphabetical Display
Numerical Display
Ref Order Display
Unconnected People Display
Locations
Locations with Events
Sources
Reasonableness Check
Fixed a problem when reading a Gedcom file from PAF 3.0
It used to not read the NOTES and also messed up some
links between parents and child. This has been fixed.
31-Jul-98 Made some more changes to fix problem on Edit screen
when showing All children when names were long or
names were in upper case. (see 10-Jun-98 below.)
Made a change to Tree report when printing in Landscape
with continuous paper to fix problem of a space between
pages on certain printers.
10-Jul-98 Fixed a problem when on the relationship calculator
screen and you pick the option to print box charts.
If you had box charts set up to include pictures, sometimes
the pictures were not centered in the box correctly.
(It happened if you printed the regular relationship
report before printing a box chart.)
10-Jun-98 Fixed a problem on the Edit screen where in some cases
the numbers of the children were not lined up correctly
in a column when it was set to show all children. (If
you still have that problem on your computer, give
examples of all the children names to John Steed and
also specify what video mode you are in - like 640 by
480 or 800 by 600 etc.)
Fixed RTF output for Word Perfect 8.0. If you pick the
option for WP 7.0 it also works for 8.0 now.
Added option for no page numbers on the index. (When
you are printing page numbers on a report, and then
you print the index, there is an option to turn off
the page numbers on the index when it is asking if
you want 2 or 3 columns for the index.)
Added alternate name of spouse on the book reports.
When you check the box that says "show alternate name
also" it used to show the alternate name only for
the descendant. Now it also does the alternate name
of the spouse.
Gedcom export will give correct error message if
you run out of disk space.
The install program now has the Finnish language and
a new French (Belgium) language which can be installed.
25-Mar-98 Fixed a problem where the page number at the top of the
index was wrong if the footnotes were printed on the
page before the index.
Increased the Collapsed ancestor chart to 99 generations.
It still prints a maximum of 2500 people currently.
19-Mar-98 Added option to print the message lines on the Custom
List routines. (currently these new fields show up only
in the English version.) If you are printing several
message lines, then be sure to add the New Line field
after each line.
Fixed problem with gedcom export when asking for ansel
character set with long names.
12-Mar-98 Fixed problem where Source window was sometimes
displayed at the top and not the bottom.
24-Feb-98 Added option to Split database to select a certain
number of generations for ancestors or descendants.
Increased the number of generations for the Register
book report to 99
Fixed a problem with gedcom import where an error
occured if it found a 3 CONT line before a 2 SOUR
line in an event.
Added an option in the Compute Relationship routine. The
way it usually works is that when you pick the compute
button and then pick "find other relationships" it will
not show you another way to find the "same" relationship.
In other words, if you are a cousin to someone because
you have the same grandFATHER, it will not show you
a "different" relationship saying you are a cousin to
that person because you have the same grandMOTHER.
However, sometimes you may be a "third cousin" to someone
in different ways (through different people in the line.)
It used to not show you that since the relationship
of "third cousin" is the same. Now, however, there is
an option where you can press F5 before you first click
on the Compute button. (nothing changes on the screen.) If
you do that, then when you pick "find other relationships"
it will show you other ways to get the same relationship
and not just show you different relationships. You
can pick Preview to see the people in the line. Then
click "find other relationshps" again and then click
Preview again and so on until you find the one you
want. Then click Print to print out that relationship.
Note to translators:
Changed the Register report to use line 1403 from the
workfile. So it uses "Next Generation" instead of
combining two lines when not showing the generation
number.
02-Feb-98 Fixed a problem with RTF output of Indented report
to Word Perfect with Henry numbers.
01-Feb-98 It now will only underline one parent on the Edit
screen if one parent is natural and one adoptive.
Fixed problem if you had long labels (over 9 letters long)
for "baptized" or "buried" when sending a group
sheet to a text file.
Gedcom import should pick correct character set now
if gedcom file was created by BK Windows.
Gedcom import will correctly pick up the divorce
year from a gedcom file. Before it read the year
if the full date was listed, but did not get the
year if only the year was available in the file.
When displaying a picture of a person, you can now
click outside the picture to close the screen (if the
picture is smaller than full screen size.)
If you start BK and have the BK program set at less
than full screen, you can move the main screen of BK
and all the other screens will open at the same
location as the main screen. (They used to open in
the upper left corner of your display.)
Fixed a problem where the pictures did not print correctly
if you did a Relationship report and clicked Box chart
and had the option set in Box chart for pictures.
If you want to print a Group sheet and NOT print the
information in the REF field, then in File, Options,
change the name of the REF field to all blanks.
Otherwise, Group sheets will show the REF field.